GATHERING

GATHER-

ING

ROUNDUP At just before 6:00 AM on a Sunday morning, I drove north to the Svarfaðardalur valley – to attend a roundup.

This roundup had nothing to do with a certain carcinogenic pesticide, nor did it involve the hasty collection of suspects during a police raid. The word roundup, when translated from Icelandic, implies the gathering of sheep, who, having roamed free summer-long on the heath, have their souls “whisked away into eternity” in early fall (via the slaughterhouse).

During and especially after the roundups, it is customary to get very drunk.

Words by Ragnar Tómas Hallgrímsson Photography by Golli

“Tomorrow, as well …”

I descended into the valley below a dark mattress of clouds at around 1:00 PM: stepping out of the car, I looked on as 30 locals – some of whom had been drinking intermittently since Friday – harmonised in a circle within the Tunguréttir fold:

“Utterly wasted, We’ll be tonight … And probably, Tomorrow, as well,”

As the few remaining sheep bleated in the outer compartments of the fold, I paid special attention to a man wearing the most stylistically inharmonious ensemble that his wardrobe could offer: a brown sheepskin hat, a leather jacket, tall boots, riding pants, and a drinking horn as an accessory. Finally, he had added the most finishing of finishing touches: a can of pesticide, functioning as a makeshift drinking vessel slung around his body.

He had big, rough hands but a voice of padded silk. He seemed admirably drunk.

As the people sang, I walked over to a man standing in the corner of the fold – who vaguely resembled an old-school pimp in riding gear.

His name was Sigurhjörtur, and he responded to my request for an interview by offering me a sip of whatever unholy swill he had stored away in his old, plastic bottle of Smirnoff. I partook as a matter of journalistic principle.

Risking my person for the sake of my profession, I drank and listened as Sigurhjörtur gestured abstractly towards the branches of his family tree, before rather earnestly opening up about his brother’s untimely death, some ten years ago, during the annual roundup.

“Not even the chopper could save him,” Hjörtur recalled, and I was deeply moved.

Casually backing away – for he kept offering me more swigs – I came across a horse, along with its owner, who, two decades ago had moved to the capital area to found a bakery, but always returned to take part in the roundup. This was something of a running theme among former valley residents: no matter their business or domicile, they always came back at this time of year.

Despite the ongoing and salient drunkenness, this baker observed how relatively tame an affair the roundup had become. “Back in the day,” he recalled, a much higher percentage of the participants were in a questionable state of mind – and there was more singing.

Hoping to document some foreign indignation at the local bacchanalia, I spoke briefly to two Scandinavians standing beside a nearby fence, overlooking the river. They were students in Akureyri and had been persuaded to come witness the roundup first-hand by a professor. Quite

“Many years ago, when scrapie hit the valley hard and we had to slaughter all the animals – there were no sheep in the valley for two years – we still attended the roundup and sang and did shots.”

misunderstanding the nature of my assignment, they began lauding the beauty of Icelandic nature. I took my leave: I had no interest in such things.

I was here expressly for sheep-related debauchery.

That old diesel engine

The coffee shed adjacent to the Tungurétt fold is a low, white building with touches of green, comprising a small assembly hall and an even smaller kitchen, powered by an old diesel engine – whose motive force is, however, not diverted into any kind of interior lighting.

Every year during the roundup, the women’s association Tilraun (Experiment) takes over the shed to sell coffee and pastries so as to finance their various charitable activities. Tilraun was established in 1915 and counts 45 ageing members (there were 60 members at its zenith); finding new recruits has proven difficult.

As all the seats inside the coffee shed were occupied, a small and disorderly line spilled out of the entrance. On the outside wall of the building, next to the queue, there hung a sign:

“The annual roundup ball will be held in Höfði community centre tonight, September 11. The ball will begin at 9:00 PM and conclude at 1:00 AM. Landabandið [the Moonshine Band] will perform. Price of admission: 2,500 kr. No debit or credit cards accepted. See you in roundup good cheer! Regards, Höfði Patrons.”

Excusing my way through the queue, I entered the dim assembly hall and briefly admired the cheerful assemblage of people who had gathered there underneath the low roof, stuffing their faces with pastries and confections, occasionally breaking into song. I popped into the kitchen to have a word with Hildigunnur, the Chair of Tilraun, who seemed to agree with the baker’s assessment that the roundup had become less obviously raucous through the years:

“Someone acting out is an exception. There are fewer badly drunk individuals.”

Surveying the tableau before me, I had to agree. These carousers seemed to be masters at their craft.

Hjörleifur

Writer, teacher, and artist Hjörleifur Hjartarson greeted us outside the shed and summed up the proceedings on the heath. Apparently, this year’s herding of sheep on the mountains took place under some of the most inauspicious conditions in recent memory.

“There was so much fog, you could barely see a few metres ahead of you,” Hjörleifur explained. “You’d bump into a sheep but then it would vanish into the mist again. I kept ho’ing at

stones and boulders,” he recalled, estimating that he and his colleagues had left over 60 sheep on the mountains – which would have to be herded next weekend.

“The second weekend is different,” he continued. “We don’t round up the sheep into the fold, we just drive them down – and we’re even more drunk. We’re screaming drunk all the way down the valley. We bring jeeps to carry those who’ve fallen off their horses,” he explained.

“Would you agree that the drinking has become more moderate over the years?”

“No, no, not all,” he protested. “We try to stay the course. Being drunk, that’s essential.”

“And you own seven and a half sheep?” I inquired, having overheard him say something to that effect a few minutes ago. “Yes, I make sure to keep a few,” he laughed. “If only for the sake of honest participation.” As our conversation drew to a close, Hjörleifur informed my colleague and me that everyone was headed to the farmstead Steindyr, whose owners always served generous portions of food and drink – alongside a roasted calf.

“Help yourselves to anything you’d like; make yourselves at home,” he added, epitomising the hospitality and generosity with which all of the Svarfaðardalur residents – or Svarfdælingar – appear to have been imbued.

Or maybe it was just the drink.

Steindyr

The residential building on the farmstead Steindyr is an oddly modern affair: a single floor with a roomy kitchen that opens onto a large living room (I almost mistook the place for a bed and breakfast), accommodating a chaise-end sofa, occupied by an old man watching a rerun of the annual New Year’s comedy special from the eighties.

As the sheepherders arrived on horseback, a table was laden with the staples of traditional food: lamb, green peas, red cabbage, gravy. The man of the house, a Mr. Herbertsson, was teetering deliriously between benches and tables offering everyone bites from a leg of smoked goat – which he had impaled with a large knife.

His wife Gulla, wearing a wool sweater and a dress patterned with sheep, approached my colleague and me, concerned that the former was not eating. After some courteous protestation from my friend, Gulla returned with a platter of drinks, and again – I partook as a matter of principle.

As I drank, the valley people broke into Iceland’s national anthem.

Ó guð vors land! Ó lands vors guð Vér lofum þitt heilaga Heilaga nafn.

At the end of one of the tables sat a sallow old man with a bald head, who was singing along with what everyone agreed was a uniquely beautiful voice. I learned that this was, in all likelihood, the old man’s final roundup; he had shown up the year before as

“We had a lot of fistfights back in the day, but now it’s like, ‘Don’t be an asshole.’”

if for the last time, but now, surely, his cancer would get the better of him. He seemed to savour every moment.

I spent a couple hours at Steindyr, eating, drinking, and smoking a single cigarillo, before wandering over to my colleague’s car, parked in front of the barn. I watched from the passenger seat as one of the sheepherders peed against the side of the house. A dog, having finagled a piece of meat from the banquet table, ran up to the public urinator, and the latter, pleased with the dog’s cleverness, laughed maniacally but shooed him away.

Þverá

At the farmstead Þverá, a bowl of meat soup was most kindly driven into my chest, and I brought it along to the livingroom table, where four women had taken their seats. Among the party were Ása and Steinborg, who were slightly less noticeably drunk than many of their male counterparts. It was a welcome lull from the exaggerated good cheer.

We discussed the 1980 film Land og Synir, one of the first Icelandic feature films – which is widely believed to have initiated the so-called “spring of Icelandic filmmaking.” It was shot right here in the valley, and Ása and Steinborg still have fond memories of the hullabaloo that accompanied its filming.

Land og Synir is based on a novel set during Iceland’s transition from a rural society to an urban one and relates the story of a farmer’s son who relocates to the city during the depression. I am the descendant of all those citybound farmers’ sons, with my roots buried somewhere near Svarfaðardalur, according to an uncle who dabbles in genealogy.

Svarfaðardalur is currently undergoing a similar transition, with animal husbandry no longer a necessary nor profitable endeavour. But even with the dwindling number of farms and animals, the women observe that they’ve “managed to keep the area largely inhabited.” Life finds a way. For the time being.

Many of the people work in Dalvík, the nearest town, but live in Svarfaðardalur, and then there’s the ongoing mountain skiing craze, which attracts people to the valley in droves during winter. Acquiescing to another shot of alcohol, I inquired if the annual roundup, and the roundup ball, had changed.

“No,” a young bespectacled woman seated at the table explained. “There are fewer sheep and more people, but it’s like our national festival. Many years ago, when scrapie hit the valley hard and we had to slaughter all the animals – there were no sheep in the valley for two years – we still attended the roundup and sang and did shots.”

They laughed.

“The few sheep that happened to wander down from the highlands were tossed straight into the slaughter wagon,” someone added.

Given the tight-knit nature of the community, I wondered if the pandemic hadn’t proven an especially difficult time.

“Yes… But we were, of course, hosting smaller parties at the farmsteads,” Steinborg clarified, referencing an especially memorable shindig at Steindyr. The fourth woman

at the table had been dancing in the barn when her kneecap unceremoniously jumped to some other region of her leg. When the ambulance arrived, everyone hid inside, because of the social restrictions.

“And you intend on dancing off your other kneecap tonight, I suppose?”

“Definitely.”

“Oh, and there’s no roundup ball without Höfði,” Steinborg added, “a building so tiny that whenever one person enters through the front – another one’s squeezed out the back.”

In the kitchen, the people broke out into song again. Outside, it seemed chilly and cloudy and there was fog creeping down the mountains.

Höfði

Deep in the Svarfaðardalur valley sits a small white building with burgundy windows and a blue, corrugated roof, which, it seems, a pair of workers had begun to paint white, starting on either side – prior to calling it quits long before meeting in the middle.

Stepping onto the parquet floor of the snug assembly hall, I counted nine wooden beams running across the inside of the gable roof and a single smoke detector on the ceiling. The walls were lined with bolstered church pews, and it seemed unlikely that the building could accommodate all the people whom I had met that day.

The frontman of the Moonshine Band – flanked by a drummer and bass player to his right and a guitarist to his left – was standing on stage. He said “Hello” in a voice filled with eagerness and expectation. It was like a scene from some old Icelandic movie.

I took about six steps across the room before I was exiting Höfði through the back, bumping into Anna, who had just arrived from the farmstead Klaufabrekknakot (“Clumsy Hill Cottage,” she said by way of translation) – and whose family had long overseen the roundup ball. As commentary on Höfði’s tininess, Anna – who has short brown hair, glasses, and a great big smile – recalled the time when someone from Akureyri made the mistake of advertising the ball, which resulted, however indirectly, in two people plummeting from the roof. There’s a reason they host the ball on Sundays.

“The roundup ball helps finance necessary renovations,” Anna remarked. “When I was little, my parents always worked the balls, and my brother and I would come out on Mondays to clean up. We’d compete to see who could find underwear in the yard.”

One of the reasons why the roundup, and its subsequent ball, have become less raucous over the years has to do with the good sense of her parents.

“We had a lot of fistfights back in the day, but now it’s like, ‘Don’t be an asshole.’ My parents threatened to stop organising the event if people couldn’t behave. Ever since, the people have mostly been on their best behaviour.”

Höfði’s kitchen is situated behind the ticket booth. Enjoying a cup of coffee before the ball began, I sat and listened to Anna, the fire marshall, the bouncer, and the singer reminisce about old times. They recalled the year that the men’s toilet broke – the year that “someone who hadn’t voided his bowels for the entire weekend,” chose this spot to do it.

“The plungers were powerless,” Anna recalled. “The hands of the staff had grown crippled working the plungers, so they approached Hlini – the man from the fold in the wonderful offbeat ensemble– who rolled up his sleeves, and plunged his arm into the toilet, loosening any unwieldy materials with his bare hands. Then he headed straight back to the dance floor: ‘For the love of God, no one shake Hlini’s hand!’” Anna remarked. (Hlini would later clarify that he had worn a plastic bag around his arm.)

The ball

At just past 9:00 PM, the first bus pulled up in front of Höfði, followed by a dozen or so vehicles. And then more vehicles, and another bus, the last of which was carrying a pair of tourists, who had been swept up with the crowd boarding the bus at the nearest gas station. The Moonshine Band took the stage at around 9:20 PM, and over the next hour or so, the dance floor grew gradually more crowded, although never exactly cramped. I was initially disappointed by how relatively domesticated the whole thing turned out to be – the drinking and the manufactured wildness paled in comparison to the warmth and openness of a community whose noses were rarely angled downwards at their phones.

I watched a 65-year-old widow with short grey hair and long dangling arms – like a stout Theresa May – tear off her wool sweater and begin engaging in a soulful two-step. She wore bright blue sneakers and black jeans, and before long, she and her friend were spinning each other in wild circles. When she regained her equilibrium, she continued to dance and glanced over in my direction, noticing that me and my colleague were leaning awkwardly against the wall. She walked over in protest:

“How the hell have you two been standing here all this time without dancing!?”

It was exactly the kind of sentiment that summed up the charm of the Svarfdælingar. They make you feel included.

The band performed SS Sól’s Rigning – and chased it with Ja Ja Ding Dong.

The crowd went wild.

“Being drunk, that’s essential.”